Robert Zemeckis takes Flight

LOS ANGELES — Robert Zemeckis returns to live-action with Flight after more than a decade of refining performance-capture animation with The Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol.

Opening Nov. 2, Flight stars Denzel Washington as an alcoholic pilot Whip Whitaker. In the film, he heroically lands a malfunctioning passenger jet, but he must face the consequences of his addiction during the subsequent investigation into the crash landing.

Kelly Reilly co-stars as a recovering addict who falls for Whitaker. John Goodman is Whitaker’s drug dealer. Don Cheadle portrays the pilot’s lawyer while Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood is a friend and union representative.

Certainly, Washington’s performance as the debilitated pilot is provocative. But Zemeckis insists he was equal to the demands of shaping the performance on the Atlanta sets last year despite his long detour into motion-capture animation.

“It’s pretty much like riding a bike,” says the 60-year-old filmmaker who won the best director Oscar for his efforts on Forrest Gump. “You know, I’ve been doing (live-action) for a long time.”

As fans know, Zemeckis’s impressive resume includes the Back to the Future trilogy and the groundbreaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

He did the dark comedy Death Becomes Her with Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis and Goldie Hawn, and the sci-fi adventure Contact starring Jodie Foster. He re-teamed with Forrest Gump buddy Tom Hanks on Cast Away and presented the thriller What Lies Beneath with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Yet Flight represents a dramatic departure for him. There was no ulterior motive, however. When Zemeckis, who is a pilot, stumbled upon the Flight screenplay, he was just plain hooked.

“It’s hard for people to believe, but I don’t have an agenda,” he says. “And I wasn’t necessarily looking for a live-action movie, but I was compelled to make this.

“The thing that intrigued me the most was the complexity and the morality of all the characters, and the fact that it violates all the rules.”

For instance, Whitaker is clearly in distress, but the airline and the union try to make him a hero. And, each time his drug dealer shows up, it’s used as comic relief.

“Things are only funny if they are true,” he says.

Flight has lots of sobering moments, as well. For example, faith-based references crop up repeatedly. “Yeah, but it’s in a non-denominational way,” says Zemeckis. “When airplanes fall out of the sky, the act-of-God subject usually comes up.”

The depiction of addiction and dysfunction gets disturbing, too, but the intent isn’t to be controversial.

“I think you relate to the pilot because he is human but he is flawed,” Zemeckis says. “There’s no question the film is sophisticated, but I think audiences are, too, and they can identify with the brokenness.”

The fact that Washington decided to play the pilot made the director’s job that much easier. They met in Atlanta to rehearse, and get to know each other on a creative level, for a few weeks before filming started, then got down to the business at hand.

“Denzel is a pro,” says Zemeckis of the Oscar winner. “He is completely prepared and really intense, and when he shows up he is always camera-ready.”

Zemeckis knew that the first 10 minutes (depicting the plane’s nosedive) would be critical to setting up the urgency that follows.

“There are two very conscious things I did,” the director says. “I wanted to keep the camera inside the plane — in the cabin and especially in the cockpit — but completely separate. The thing that makes it terrifying is the passengers don’t have any idea what’s going on.”

In another sequence, the plane inverts to come out of the nosedive.

“I found out it could work for about 30 seconds then the engines would catch fire,” says Zemeckis. “I said, ‘Good, we can use that.'”

It’s not so good for moviegoers who suffer from a fear of flying, but the director says they shouldn’t worry.

I am the Postmedia News movie writer and canada.com columnist. I prepare features and profiles stars of major motion pictures, including Robert Downey Jr., George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts... read more. Previously, I was a movie writer for Postmedia's National Post. I was at the George Lucas farm near San Francisco to report on the last Star Wars picture, Revenge of the Sith. I was in New York for the first preview of Peter Jackson's King Kong remake. And I have been up close and personal with high profile A-listers such as Cameron Diaz, Matt Damon, Jennifer Aniston and many others. Before that, I was a sleep-deprived pop music writer and critic, a film writer and reviewer, and entertainment editor at the Toronto Sun. I also worked at CBC as a writer and producer, and was one of five writers selected to produce the script for the CBC's Canada For Asia live tsunami benefit broadcast in 2005.View author's profile